stupid oil leak again

ok my oil leaks back in action

first off my truck: its a 90' 4.0 manual bone stock motor

ok my leak: im gettin pretty bad leakage coming off my bell housing. it appears to run from between the flat plate thing that kinda closes up the round part of the bell thats not directly attached to motor. also it appears to only run from the passenger side of the bell housingbetween the plate thing. it only leaks bad once warm and i just came to notice it only leaks while im driving, if it sits and idles a min or 2 it stops and then soon as i drive leaks back.

what ive replaced so far: rear main seal, oil mpan gasket, and valve cover gasket. all were done over this last week end.

now the strange little thing: i did pan and rms saturday and it still leaked badly. so i did valve cover gasket sunday and the leak stopped, i did accidently leave the rear(one closer to cab) vacuum tube thing off til wednesday, which i then noticed white shit on my dipstick a little at the bottom when i pulled it out. so i stuck the vacuum line thing back on drove it to the parts store and got a jug of oil. did a change and the oil that came out had no white stuff. but first drive after the newest oil it was back to leaking.

so 1. whats that rear tube on the valve cover do and called and 2. please help me im outta ideas

did you check the oil pressure sending unit o-ring?

um no. would that leak from where i explained cuz i dunno where that o-ring is

nevermind im thinking its gonna be my sending unit. theres signs that it is so ill go through it saturday

Check to mack sure you didn't OVER torque the valve cover. TOO tight and they leak, also. Look at the back by the firewall

1990heepxj said:

would that leak from where i explained

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I've seen just about every leak on the 4.0L drip from where you explained. It seems that oil from the oil sender, oil filter adapter, valve cover, and the oil pan/RMS will leak down to the oil pan mounting surface and then travel to the back of the engine and drip from there.

OPS leaks are common on anything with the 4.0L. I havnet figured out why yet, or a better way to seal them up, but an o ring only costs a couple of cents at ACE or True Value. I usually have a couple sitting around just incase. A freind of mine told me to put pipe dope on the ring, but I dont see that as a good idear. Id rather just replace the old one. But like it was said, over torqueing anything can cause a leak. especially on the valve cover. You'll squish the gasket right out of there.

rear tube on the valve cover is part of the crankcase ventilation (CCV) system on the XJ.

I'd use pipe dope on the oil pressure sender threads since the factory did, I'd just make sure to use the kind with PTFE in it instead of the grey kind meant for natural gas lines.

ok ya ima mess with the sending unit on saturday no time today and i didnt over tighten the valve cover so thats not a worry i am pretty sure its the sending unit at stis point due to the oil blast area all behind the sending unit toward the firewall on that big black smog thingy and the side of the motor even some on my dist cap

After I spent 10 long hours replacing my RMS recently, I discovered, to my dismay, that I still had a leak coming from the rear main seal area. I punched, kicked, and dragged my butt around for a day, then did some research and learned that my Oil Filter Adapter (OFA) o-rings could be the culprit. When those go, you will have oil covering the starter and oil pan, and it tends to collect and drip in the same area as the RMS.

I promptly drove to the dealer and bought the OFA o-ring package for 8 bucks. I swapped the o-rings in under 30 minutes, and that seems to have cleared up the oil leak. Starter is now bone dry and surrounding area looks good.

If you have not done this yet, search for OFA o-rings and you will find many directions for removal. The nut holding the filter bolt is different on some models, so make sure you find directions for your year.

Good luck and enjoy!

ya ill head to napa tomorow hopefully they have the o-ring kit cuz i know thats my leak now

Had the same problem and after much butt scratching i found the culprit was the gasket at the distributor base! Cleaned, replaced and no oil leak! Who'd a thunk it?

ok so i cleaned off the oil on the side there. its coming from my damn dip stick tube up at the handle so whats the ideas now. im thinking possibly bad problem

1990heepxj said:

ok so i cleaned off the oil on the side there. its coming from my damn dip stick tube up at the handle so whats the ideas now. im thinking possibly bad problem

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Could be as simple as a pressurized crankcase from a clogged CCV system.

Do a full service on the CCV. Make sure the vacuum orifice on the intake manifold is open, that the tube running to the rear grommet on the valve cover is open, and that the orifice in the valve cover itself is clear. You need filtered air entering the front grommet of the valve cover--check the "J" shaped hose, they deteriorate internally and will collapse causing weird stuff like oil on the rear hatch.

There is a mod for the Renix valve cover pickup tubes--check out Cruiser54's post in this thread: http://naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1026666

omg joe peters man i love you in a totally straight way. my front tube on the ccv system has a wirtd little 90* turn thing with like a little diaphram in it thats allowing air to come out but not come in. i didnt know the flow of that front line if it was out or in. i just drove with it off and wala no leak

ok so i now realize that the thing that was in there was a pcv valve. nice of the previous owner to put a thing on there that our motors dont even use......... so anyway problem fixed thanks much to those of you who gave input

1990heepxj said:

ok so i now realize that the thing that was in there was a pcv valve. nice of the previous owner to put a thing on there that our motors dont even use......... so anyway problem fixed thanks much to those of you who gave input

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Those POs are something else!

That's why I get a little "anal retentive" when people refer to the CCV system on the 4.0 as a PCV system. Some poor owner ends up arguing with the "parts counter dude" because he read on that he needs to service the "PCV" system on his 4.0, and nobody has the PCV valve! :wierd:

ya what i found funny was that the parts store even calls it a pcv sysem in their computers. also of course the parts store doesnt carry the replacement rubber elbow thing i need, so i found a different elbow to work til i get the right one. what id love to know is what the heck did that tard i bought this thing from get that pcv valve off of that just happened to fit the gromet. so anyway i finally have resolution to this sob of an oil leak. and all i know is its amazing how much oil i had come out of my dip stick tube last weekend comin home from my partent house, it drained 2 quarts in about a 110 miles

You may have one of those "special" PCV valves from a guy down in AZ (I think)--here it is: http://www.envalve.com/

na i think it was a plain old pcv cuz it had a 90* turn to it that a hose was hooked to and went to my intake. it did look like part of it was cut off to make it fit maybe